Chapter I (part 3)

Positivism as the study of the phenomenal side of life. Of what does the "two-dimensionality" of positive philosophy consist? The regarding of everything upon a single plane, in one physical sequence. The streams which flow underneath the earth. What can the study of life, as a phenomenon, yield? The artificial world which science erects for itself. The unreality of finished and isolated phenomena. The new apprehension of the world 143 CHAPTER XIV The voices of stones. The wall of a church and the wall of a prison. The mast of a ship and a gallows. The shadow of a hangman and of an ascetic. The soul of a hangman and of an ascetic. The different combinations of known phenomena in higher space. The relationship of phenomena which appear unrelated, and the difference between phenomena which appear similar. How shall we approach the noumenal world? The understanding of things outside the categories of space and time. The reality of many "figures of speech." The occult understanding of energy. The letter of a Hindu occultist. Art as the knowledge of the noumenal world. What we see and what we do not see. Plato's dialogue about the cavern 156 p. x Occultism and love. Love and death. Our different relations to the problems of death and to the problems of love. What is lacking in our understanding of love? Love as an every-day and merely psychological phenomena. The possibility of a spiritual understanding of love. The creative force of love. The negation of love. Love and mysticism. The "wondrous" in love. Nietzsche, Edward Carpenter and Schopenhauer on love. "The Ocean of Sex." 166 CHAPTER XVI The phenomenal and noumenal side of man. "Man-in-himself." How do we know the inner side of man? Can we know of the existence of consciousness in conditions of space not analogous to ours? Brain and consciousness. Unity of the world. Logical impossibility of the simultaneous existence of spirit and matter. Either all spirit or all matter. Rational and irrational actions in nature and in the life of man. Can rational actions exist alongside irrational? The world as an accidentally self-created mechanical toy. The impossibility of reason in a mechanical universe. The irreconcilability of mechanicalness with the existence of reason. Kant concerning "hosts." Spinoza on the knowledge of the invisible world. Necessity for the intellectual definition of that which can be, and that which cannot be, in the world of hidden. 176 CHAPTER XVII A living and rational universe. Different forms and lines of rationality. Animated nature. The souls of stones and the souls of trees. The soul of a forest. The human "I" as a collective rationality. Man as a complex being. "Humanity" as a being. The world's soul. The face of Mahadeva . Prof. James on the consciousness of the universe. Fechner's ideas. Zendavesta . A living Earth. 198 CHAPTER XVIII Rationality and life. Life as knowledge. Intellect and emotions. Emotion as an organ of knowledge. The evolution of emotion from the standpoint of knowledge. Pure and impure emotions. Personal and impersonal emotions. Personal and super-personal emotions. The elimination of self-elements as a means of approach to true knowledge. "Be as little children. . . " "Blessed are the pure in heart. . . ." The value of morals from the standpoint of knowledge. The defects of intellectualism. Dreadnaughts as the crown of intellectual culture. The dangers of morality. Moral esthetics. Religion and art as organized forms of emotional knowledge. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of Beauty. 213 CHAPTER XIX The intellectual method, objective knowledge. The limits of objective knowledge. The possibility of the expansion of the application of the psychological method.